Stakeholders from all sides of the issue are weighing in this legislative session on changes to a statewide policy on "time off for good behavior" earned by criminals in the state criminal justice system.

Six of 31 bills before the House Judiciary Committee on Feb. 22 focused on the subject and more are expected, legislators said.

"The overwhelming number of bills on this issue [is] reflective of the concerns of the community," said Del. Benjamin F. Kramer (D-Dist. 19) of Rockville.

"People are saying Look, we see flaws in the criminal justice system,'" he said. "People are saying: Hey, why aren't these issues being addressed?'"

Diminution credits  or mandatory release credits  allow an inmate to reduce his or her jail sentence for "good conduct" such as by furthering his education or completing tasks, rehabilitation or special projects. Proposed bills seeking to curb the issue range from HB 198, which aims to eliminate diminution credits and parole eligibility for convicted pedophiles, to HB 790, which aims to minimize early release of violent criminals. Proponents of diminution credits argue that the lure of early release encourages prisoners to work hard, behave and rehabilitate.

"If you don't have dim credits, it's a jailer's nightmare. Even the federal government has diminution credits," said District Public Defender of Prince George's County Brian Denton of District 5, who said that the issue surfaces every year.

Denton  who has spoken the last two weeks against bills that would remove or reduce diminution credit opportunities for sex offenders  said that diminution credits encourage prisoners to get treatment and help corrections officials to manage the prison population.

"Unfortunately we haven't had a systemic approach and we haven't had a comprehensive approach and some people have just chosen to sit on the lid of the pot until it blows off," said state Del. Luiz R. S. Simmons of Gaithersburg (D-Dist. 17), who serves with Kramer on the House Judiciary Committee. "I think there's a crisis. I think we should do our best but I think we should have done something in the past."

Simmons plans to reintroduce a bill to install a task force that would look at all sides of the issue  and if that doesn't succeed, to support a bill that would remove diminution credits for sexual offenders, whom he says have the highest rate of recidivism, or repeat offenses, he said.

Kramer and Montgomery County Police hope to limit the total number of diminution credits given to violent offenders, drug lords and sex offenders to a maximum of 10 days off for each calendar month.

"The amount of good time credits that the defendant earns while incarcerated in many cases allows for release after serving a very small portion of their sentence," Glenn F. Ivey, State's Attorney for Prince George's County, testified in support of Kramer's bill.

"Not everybody can be rehabilitated," Kramer said. "If we're serious about protecting our residents then we need to keep our community safe from these people for longer periods of time."

He cited statistics provided by the Governor's Office of Crime Control and Prevention and collected in 2009 that 51 percent of Maryland inmates who are convicted for a crime of violence and let out early on mandatory release are re-arrested and are back in prison within three years. Half of those offenders return on new offenses, according to the statistics.

Kramer's bill, a scaled-down version of last year's proposed truth-in-sentencing bill he championed with state Sen. Nancy J. King (D-Dist. 39) of Montgomery Village, which would have required violent offenders to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences, may not achieve better sentencing, said Simmons, who said a new bill would not prevent judges from issuing shorter sentences on par with those achieved through diminution credits.

Debra Harvey of Oneonta, N.Y., whose daughter Lindsay, a Gaithersburg woman, was killed in April 2008 by a repeat violent offender whose early release from prison came in part through diminution credits, wrote a three-page letter to legislators.

She said that after more than one year of meetings, hearings and trials, she watched her daughter's murderer sentenced to life without parole plus 20 years in prison.

"I don't know whether this means he will die in prison or whether he will get out of prison again somehow," Harvey said. "I don't know what to believe and I have no confidence in the Maryland judicial system."